Call for Papers: University of California, Merced, Conference on The Black Arts Movement, March, 2014

Sonia Sanchez, Queen Mother of BAM

 

Askia Toure, Rolland Snellings, one of the BAM Godfathers

 

 

 

 

Amina and Amiri Baraka, Queen and King of BAM

 

Marvin X, West Coast Godfather of BAM

 

In less than five years, America will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.  Sonia Sanchez, one of the leading voices of the Black Arts Movement believes that “The black artist is dangerous.  Black art controls the “Negro’s” reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.”  These positive images of blackness were celebrated on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.  At the 1963 gathering, Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech represented the pinnacle of hope of freedom for all Americans.  The question that must be asked fifty years later is “have we achieved that dream?” We must all ask, with the upcoming 50^th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, have the images of blackness in America changed?  Is blackness still seen as inferior? In Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art,” first published in the liberator in 1966, he writes:

 

Clean out the world for virtue and love,

Let there be no love poems written

until love can exist freely and

cleanly….We want a black poem. And a 

Black World.

Let the world be a Black Poem

And Let All Black People Speak This Poem

Silently or LOUD

 

Are black people speaking their poems, their truth about blackness? Has the Black Arts Movement created the hoped for change in how black people view themselves?

 

These questions and more will be explored at the International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and its influences at UC Merced, March 1-2, 2014.  The call for papers on a worldwide level is asking the larger questions beyond race, and culture  as we examine  what happened during the Black Arts Movement, and how that changed us as a nation, and as a world.  The Black Arts Movement, the spiritual twin of the Black Power Movement is noted for having changed how African Americans viewed themselves as a race.  African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.  This call for papers invites scholars of all cultural and racial backgrounds to submit  work that illustrates the influence of the Black Arts Movement, both past and present.  The Chicano, Asian, Women’s, Disability Rights, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movements were all influenced by the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, establishing new academic fields of study, and empowering those that society had marginalized.    
--Kim McMillan

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014

1^ST Floor Lantern (Kolligian Library)

8:00 –  8:30 AM                        Registration, Coffee/Tea and Light Refreshments

8:30 – 9:00 AM                        Welcoming Remarks (9:00 am – 5:00 pm 

9:15 – 10:15 AM            Multicultural Panel (Lakireddy Auditorium)

                                    Belva Davis, Panel Moderator

                                    Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate

                                    Genny Lim, Poet & Activist

                                    Al Young, California Poet  Laureate Emeritus

                                    Avotcja, Poet

 

10:30 – 11:30 AM            Black Power and Black Arts Roundtable (Lakireddy Auditorium)

                                    Nigel Hatton, Moderator

                                    Sonia Sanchez, Poet, Playwright, Teacher

                                    John Bracey, UMass Amherst

                                    James Smethurst, UMass Amherst

                                    Amiri Baraka, Producer, Writer, Activist (still waiting for confirmation)

                                    Marvin X, Playwright, Activist

 

11:30 – 1:00 PM            Luncheon

 

1:15  –   2:00 PM            Marvin X, Keynote Speaker

 

2:15  –   3:15 PM            Theatre of the Black Arts Movement (speakers TBA)

 

4:00  –   5:30 PM          Northern and Central California Voices of the Black Arts Movement Installation

                                  Merced Multicultural Arts Center

                                    S.O.S. – Calling All Black People:  A Black Arts Movement Reader

Discussion with editors:  John H. Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, and James Smethurst

Dinner

 

7:00  –  9:00 PM         Theatre of the Black Arts Movement

(Excerpts from the plays of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Marvin X, Ishmael Reed, Lorraine Hansberry, and George Wolfe) Performed by Michael Lange, Adilah Barnes, and UC Merced Students

(Must have purchased ticket for this event)

 

SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2014

           

                                    Lantern, 1^st Floor Kolligian Library

8:30 – 9:00 AM          Registration, Coffee/Tea and Refreshments

 

9:15 – 10:15 AM         New Scholarship on the Black Arts and Black Power Movement (Lakireddy Auditorium)

                                    Mike Sell, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

                                    James Smethurst, University of Mass, Amherst

                                    Marvin X, Playwright

                                    Sean Malloy, University of Merced

 

10:30 – 11:30 AM       Black Studies & the Black Arts Movement

                                    Dr. Nathan Hare

                                    Sonia Sanchez

                                    Dr. John Bracey

                                    Judy Juanita

 

                                   

Lunch

 

1:15  –  2:00 PM          Ishmael Reed, Keynote Speaker

 

 

2:15  –  3:00 PM         Central Valley Voices of the Black Arts Movement

Nigel Hatton, Moderator

(Student Papers)

Give Birth to Brightness: A Thematic Study of Neo-Black Literature by Sherley Anne Williams  & Somethin' Proper, the Autobiography of Marvin X

 

 

Hotel:  Hampton Inn in Merced, CA will offer room discounts to conference attendees.              

Call for Papers

A call for papers for an international conference on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences, University of California, Merced, March 1-2, 2014

 

In less than five years, America will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.  Sonia Sanchez, one of the leading voices of the Black Arts Movement believes that “The black artist is dangerous.  Black art controls the “Negro’s” reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.”  These positive images of blackness were celebrated on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.  At the 1963 gathering, Martin Luther King’s “I Had a Dream” speech represented the pinnacle of hope of freedom for all Americans.  The question that must be asked fifty years later is “have we achieved that dream?” We must all ask, with the upcoming 50^th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, have the images of blackness in America changed?  Is blackness still seen as inferior? In Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art,” first published in the liberator in 1966, he writes:

 

Clean out the world for virtue and love,

Let there be no love poems written

until love can exist freely and

cleanly….We want a black poem. And a 

Black World.

Let the world be a Black Poem

And Let All Black People Speak This Poem

Silently or LOUD

 

Are black people speaking their poems, their truth about blackness? Has the Black Arts Movement created the hoped for change in how black people view themselves?

 

These questions and more will be explored at the International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and its influences at UC Merced, March 1-2, 2014.  The call for papers on a worldwide level is asking the larger questions beyond race, and culture  as we examine  what happened during the Black Arts Movement, and how that changed us as a nation, and as a world.  The Black Arts Movement, the spiritual twin of the Black Power Movement is noted for having changed how African Americans viewed themselves as a race.  African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.  This call for papers invites scholars of all cultural and racial backgrounds to submit  work that illustrates the influence of the Black Arts Movement, both past and present.  The Chicano, Asian, Women’s, Disability Rights, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) movements were all influenced by the Black Arts and Black Power Movements, establishing new academic fields of study, and empowering those that society had marginalized.    

 

This conference, sponsored by the University of Merced’s African Diaspora Graduate Student Association, seeks papers that offer new scholarship on the Black Arts and Black Power Movements as well as new insights into the following areas of study:

 

◦                            Regional examinations of the Black Arts Movement

◦                           The Black Arts Movement -- national and international

◦                            Women authors of The Black Arts Movement

◦                            Male domination and the Black Arts Movement

◦                           The Politics and Art of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements

◦                           Symbology and the Black Arts and Black Power Movements

◦                            Cultural Legacies of the Black Arts Movement

◦                            Community Theatre and the Black Arts Movement

◦                           Clothing, Music, and Art of the Black Arts Movement

◦                            Race and the Black Arts Movement

◦                            The use of Poetry and Drama in the Black Arts Movement

◦                           The media and the Black Arts and Black Power Movements

◦                            The historical context of the Black Arts Movement

◦                            The Black Panthers and the Black Arts Movement

◦                        The influence of the Black Arts Movement on other cultures

◦                        The use of language as Art in the Black Arts Movement

◦                        The creation of the Black Arts and Black Power Movement

◦                        Film and the Black Arts Movement

◦                       The Intersection between the Civil Rights and the Black Power, and Black Arts Movements

 

Special invited guests include:  Sonia Sanchez, Ishmael Reed, John Bracey, James Smethurst, Mike Sell, Juan Felipe Herrera, Genny Lim, Al Young, Belva Davis, Marvin X, Adilah Barnes, Dr. Nathan Hare, and others.

 

Please send your one-page abstract and brief bio to Kim McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu by December 18, 2013.

 

Call for Papers, Reports, and Studies:

 

The Black Arts Movement Conference invites the following types of submissions:

 

Research Papers - Completed research papers in any of the topic areas listed above or related areas.

  

Student Papers - Research done by students in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas.

 

Poets Mohja Kahf and Marvin X. Mohja has connected the importance of BAM to Muslim American literature

Case Studies - Case studies in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas.

 

Work-in-Progress Reports for Future Research - Incomplete research in any of the topic areas listed above, or related areas. 

 

 

Presentations:

 

Paper sessions will consist of no more than four presentations in a 80-minute session.  The session will be divided equally between the presenters.

 

Workshop presentations will be given a full 60-minute session.

 

Panel sessions will provide an opportunity for three or more presenters to speak in a more open session where ideas can be exchanged.  These sessions are 80 minutes.

 

Poster sessions will last 90 minutes and consist of a large number of presenters.  The following supplies will be provided for poster sessions:

•                Easel

•                Tri-fold display board (48 x 36 inches)

•                Markers

•                Push pins

•                Tape

•                Round table

•                Chairs

 

Submitting a Proposal/Paper:

 

Make your submission by

following these directions:

 

Create a title page for your submission.  The title page must include:

 

a.              Title of the submission

b.              Topic area of the submission (choose a topic area from the list at the top of this page)

c.              Presentation format (choose one: Paper Session, Workshop, Panel Session, or Poster Session)

d.              A description of your presentation, which should not exceed 150 words in total. Please note that       you are still required to send in an abstract/paper in addition to this description.

e.              paper author(s):

f.               EACH author, should list the following:

•                Full Name

•                Department/Division

•                University/Company/Organization

•     Email Address (all acceptance/rejection letters are sent via email, so it is very important to have a correct email address for each author.)

 

g. Email your abstract and/or paper, along with the above-described title page, to kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu.  Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged via email within one week.  

 

NOTE:  Conference papers, proposal, panels, workshops, and poster sessions will take place on the University of California, Merced campus concurrently from 9-4 pm on Saturday, and 10 am – 2:00 pm on Sunday, March 1-2, 2014.  Please use the following method for registration payment.

 

My Little Mosque, a poem by Mohja Kahf

     

Poet Mohja Kahf invited fellow poet Marvin X to read at  the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

 

Little Mosque Poems

By Mohja Kahf

In my little mosque
there is no room for me
to pray. I am
turned away faithfully
five
times a day

My little mosque:
so meager
in resources, yet
so eager
to turn away
a woman
or a stranger

My little mosque
is penniless, behind on rent
Yet it is rich in anger
every Friday, coins of hate
are generously spent

My little mosque is poor yet
every week we are asked to give
to buy another curtain
to partition off the women,
or to pave another parking space

I go to the Mosque of the Righteous
I have been going there all my life
I have been the Cheerleader of the Righteous Team
I have mocked the visiting teams cruelly
I am the worst of those I complain about:
I am a former Miss Mosque Banality

I would like to build
a little mosque
without a dome
or minaret
I'd hang a sign
over the door:
Bad Muslims
welcome here
Come in, listen
to some music,
sharpen
the soul's longing,
have a cigarette

I went to the mosque
when no one was there
and startled two angels
coming out of a broom closet
"Are they gone now?" one said
They looked relieved

My great big mosque
has a chandelier
big as a Christmas tree
and a jealously guarded
lock and key
I wonder why
everyone in it
looks just like me

My little mosque
has a bouncer at the door
You have to look pious
to get in

My little mosque
has a big sense of humor
Not

I went to the mosque
when no one was there
The prayer space was soft and serene
I heard a sound like lonely singing
or quiet sobbing. I heard a leafy rustling
I looked around
A little Quran
on a low shelf
was reciting itself

My little mosque has a Persian carpet
depicting trees of paradise
in the men's section, which you enter
through a lovely classical arch
The women's section features
well, nothing

Piety dictates that men enter
my little mosque through magnificent columns
Piety dictates
that women enter
my little mosque
through the back alley,
just past the crack junkie here
and over these fallen garbage cans

My little mosque used to be democratic
with a rotating imam
we chose from among us every month
Now my little mosque has an appointed imam
trained abroad
No one can dispute his superior knowledge

We used to use our minds
to understand Quran
My little mosque discourages
that sort of thing these days
We have official salaried translators
for God

I used to carry around a little mosque
in the chambers of my heart
but it is closed indefinitely pending
extensive structural repairs

I miss having a mosque,
driving by and seeing cars lining the streets,
people double-parking, desperate
to catch the prayer in time
I miss noticing, as they dodge across traffic
toward the mosque entrance between
buses and trucks,
their long chemises fluttering,
that trail of gorgeous fabrics Muslims leave,
gossamer, the colors of hot lava, fantastic shades
from the glorious places of the earth
I miss the stiff, uncomfortable men
looking anywhere but at me when they meet me,
and the double-faced women
full of judgment, and their beautiful
children shining
with my children. I do

I don't dream of a perfect mosque
I just want roomfuls of people to kiss every week
with the kisses of Prayer and Serenity,
and a fat, multi-trunked tree
collecting us loosely for a minute under
its alive and quivering canopy

Once, God applied
for a janitor position at our mosque,
but the board turned him down
because he wasn't a practicing
Muslim

Once a woman entered
my little mosque
with a broken arm,
a broken heart,
and a very short skirt
Everyone rushed over to her
to make sure
she was going to cover her legs

Marshmallows are banned
from my little mosque
because they might
contain gelatin derived from pork enzymes
but banality is not banned,
and yet verily,
banality is worse than marshmallows

Music is banned
at my little mosque
because it is played on
the devil's stringed instruments,
although a little music
softens the soul
and lo, a hardened soul
is the devil's taut drumskin

Once an ignorant Bedouin
got up and started to pee against a wall
in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina
The pious protective Companions leapt
to beat him
The Prophet bade them stop
A man is entitled to finish a piss
even if he is an uncouth idiot,
and there are things
more important in a mosque than ritual purity

My little mosque thinks
the story I just narrated
cannot possibly be true
and a poet like me cannot possibly
have studied Sahih al-Bukhari

My little mosque
thinks a poem like this must be
written by the Devil
in cahoots with the Zionists,
NATO, and the current U.S. administration,
as part of the Worldwide Orientalist Plot
to Discredit Islam
Don't they know
at my little mosque
that this is a poem
written in the mirror
by a lover?

My little mosque
is fearful to protect itself
from the bricks of bigots
through its window
Doesn't my little mosque know
the way to protect its windows
is to open its doors?

I know the bricks of bigots
are real
I wish I could protect my little mosque
with my body as a shield

I love my dysfunctional little mosque
even though I can't stand it

My little mosque loves Arab men
with pure accents and beards
Everyone else is welcome
as long as
they understand that Real Islam
has to come from an Arab man

My little mosque loves Indian
and Pakistani men with Maududi in their pockets
Everyone else is welcome because as we all know
there is no discrimination in Islam

My little mosque loves women
who know that Islam liberated them
fourteen hundred years ago and so
they should live like seventh-century Arabian women
or at least dress
like pre-industrial pre-colonial women
although
men can adjust with the times

My little mosque loves converts
especially white men and women
who give "Why I embraced Islam" lectures
to be trotted out as trophies
by the Muslim pom-pom squad
of Religious One-up-man-ship

My little mosque faints at the sight
of pale Bosnian women suffering
across the sea
Black women suffering
across the street
do not move
my little mosque much

I would like to find a little mosque
where my Christian grandmother
and my Jewish great-uncle the rebbe
and my Buddhist cousin
and my Hindu neighbor
would be as welcome
as my staunchly Muslim mom and dad

My little mosque has young men and women
who have nice cars, nice homes, expensive educations,
and think they are the righteous rageful
Victims of the World Persecution

My little mosque offers courses on
the Basics of Islamic Cognitive Dissonance
"There is no racism in Islam" means
we won't talk about it
"Islam is unity" means
shuttup
There's so much to learn
Class is free and meets every week

I don't dream of a perfect mosque, only
a few square inches of ground
that will welcome my forehead,
no questions asked

My little mosque is as decrepit
as my little heart. Its narrowness
is the narrowness in me. Its windows
are boarded up like the part of me that prays

I went to the mosque
when no one was there
No One was sweeping up
She said: This place is just a place
Light is everywhere. Go, live in it
The Mosque is under your feet,
wherever you walk each day

Parts of this poem have been published in Azizah Magazine.

Mohja Kahf's first book of poetry is E-Mails from Scheherazad (University Press of Florida, 2003). She was born in Syria and came to the United States in 1971 with her parents. Now a sedate professor of literature at the University of Arkansas, Dr. Kahf used to be one of the baton-twirling sisters in her college alma mater's MSA chapter.

Marvin X reviews Sonia Sanchez--Wounded in the House of a Friend

 

 

Sonia Sanchez is a poet to be heard and not read: in the hearing is the reading, for she is in the oral tradition, going back to the Nile River poets, the Congo River poets and the West African griots, those walking encyclopedias who carried in their heads the mythology and rituals of the entire tribe or nation, such is Sonia. She is the priestess, the shaman lady of the African American Nation. She qualifies because of real life suffering, dancing down into the pit of hell to arise with understanding to tell you all, if you can stand the low down dirty truth, not the Miller Lite bs for the tender hearts, but stories of pain and love and love and pain that lead to understanding and transcending.

Sometimes the poems are so strong even the poet fears going there, down into the deep dark purple funk of their lives, although we must, otherwise poetry has no meaning. Still, we will often avoid my proverb, "Poets must study their poems." Or maybe there comes a time when we have mastered certain poems, certain myths/rituals.

 

I know every time I try to get Sonia to read “Wounded In the House of A Friend,” she refuses, says she ain't in the mood or anything to avoid going there. One night at Baraka's house I thought she was going to read it with me, since it is a dramatic dialogue poem for a male and female. When I thought we were ready to read, she eased over to the piano and accompanied me like she was Ornette Coleman. Now her piano playing was absolutely beautiful, but she left me hanging, reading both male and female parts. Being a dramatist myself, I didn't mind, but I wanted so much for her to join me, just to hear her voice.

 

“Wounded In the House of a Friend” is a most beautiful dramatic poem about the ungrateful male, or shall we say simply, a poem about a male dog. Maybe that’s why I love it so much and she hates it.

She hadn't found anything. I had been careful. No lipstick. No matches from a well-known bar. No letters. Cards. Confessing an undying love. Nothing tangible for her to hold onto. But I knew she knew. It had been on her face, in her eyes for the last nine days. It was the way she looked at me sideways from across the restaurant table as she picked at her brown rice sushi . . .               

              

Sonia is describing not only the male dog, but the transcendent artist who brings the rock of Sisyphus down on herself . And perhaps the reason she refused to read with me was because the woman in the mirror is so painful, even after months/years of detachment.

Some poems are like that, too hot to handle even years later.

 

Yeah. There was another woman. In fact there were three women. In Florida, Californian, and North Carolina. Places to replace her cool detachment of these last years. No sex for months. Always tired or sick or off to some conference designed to save the world from racism or extinction. If I had jerked off one more time in bed while lying next to her it woulda dropped off. Still I wondered how she knew.

There is a song by Ledisi called "Take Time" that a friend had the singer autograph to me. Take time for yourself, something the artist finds impossible to do, lost in the world of imagination or saving the world from extinction, although the world ain't going nowhere, only we are soon and very soon.

. . . As I drove home from the party I asked him what was wrong? What was bothering him? Were we okay? Would we make love tonite? Would we ever make love again? Did my breath stink? Was I too short? Too tall? Did I talk too much? Should I wear lipstick? Should I cut my hair? Let it grow? What did he want for dinner tomorrow nite? Was I driving too fast? Too slow? What is wrong man? He said I was always exaggerating. Imagining things. Always looking for trouble.

Here the perfect woman speaks, who does everything to be perfect, firstly, for herself, but for her man too, to no avail, because the devil has slipped into the game. And so the drama of this poem begins, the drama of a life seemingly impossible because we make it so with our negrocities (Baraka term, and he should know). But it is a drama of truth, and as Baldwin said the greatness of a poet is determined by the amount of truth he/she is willing to reveal about her life and humanity. Sonia goes there, there where no hiding place awaits the truth seeker, or shall we say interrogator:

I'm not answering that.

So our poetess/dramatist is describing classic high class Negro love—of course the low down ignut Negroes have a different dialogue, are not so diplomatic, civil. But thanks Sonia for showing us sick, high class black love.  And now we get to the insanity of it all:

What an image of mental terror, the stress and strain of not going stark raving mad, as Baldwin wondered why not. With these lines, Sonia moves from dramatist to poet. Those not working in both genres think there is a confusion of form.  But in the mind of the poet/dramatist there is an easy flow between forms, actually an integration and synthesis, in other words, no problem. How else can she address the  pain and terror, sitting upright and proper, oh no buddy, ain't that kinna party.   This is an any means necessary kind of drama, moving into pure poetry:

I am preparing for him to come home. I have exercised. Soaked in the tub. Scrubbed my body. Oiled myself down. What a beautiful day it's been. Warmer than usual. The cherry blossoms on the drive are blooming prematurely. The hibiscus are giving off a scent Around the house. I have gotten drunk off the smell. So  delicate.  So sweet. So loving. I have been sleeping, no daydreaming all day. Lounging inside my head. I am walking up this hill. The day is green. All green. even the sky. I start to run down the hill and I take wing and begin to fly and the currents turn me upside  down and I become young again child like again ready to participate in all children's games.

The above lines take us to the Biblical Song of Solomon, the vibe, the mood, the tension,  is almost identical, the imagery and metaphors. Awaiting her lover, drunk from the very idea of him, preparing herself for his embrace. She sees him coming and flies into his arms, woman like, but childlike with ecstasy, gazelle like. This is the best Sonia gets. I am not going to discuss the other poems in this collection, Wounded In the House of A Friend. This is the masterpiece. Perhaps this is why she is afraid to read it with me. It is great love and great pain. So read the book. She is a poet of love, the love of love, the pain of love, the joy of love, the hate of love, the wonder of love, the lost of love. And then she is the priestess who will shout, scream, wail, chant, sing, moan and cry with you.

Hear her, read her and get a healing.

23 December 2003

Marvin X: Parable of the Green Revolution

Can man stop the ash cloud over Europe? A man was asked about the future of books. He answered, the question is not about the future of books but the future of man!--Plato Negro

President Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia in 500 years, celebrates the rights
of Mother Earth.The law declares that Mother Earth has rights.

The Green Revolution is not what you think, rather it is Nature in revolt against man, and man can do little when Nature is against him. He can try but the only solution is to correct himself otherwise Nature is going to consume him, yes, eat him alive, flooding the land by raising the sea level, drying up the water that will soon be more valuable than oil, polluting the food with bacteria making it inedible.
We see man trying to make changes in nature but not in himself, for he has no intention to give freedom and justice to the poor, but has come with an entirely new method of domination and exploitation called globalism that cares nothing about the welfare of nations, only profit. If people suffer, too bad, we must let free market forces play out, except when the exploitation is so blatant he will make minor adjustments as with the sub prime mortgage crisis. The government says it will help a few but most of the people, especially the poor who were the worse victims shall be homeless—once again, they have been robbed of their American dream.
But Nature shall not stop her fury until the white supremacy rulers and their running dogs have been removed from power, no matter what it takes—they have no weapons against nature, the sun, the moon and stars, the oceans, rivers and mountains, even the trees, animals and fish are against the Globalists.

The focus of the Green revolution should not be on Nature but on those who have polluted the earth with the blood and bones of the righteous people. They must be apprehended and brought to justice. Their greed and desire for cheap labor and cheap resources will bring about their doom and no amount of correcting the forces of Nature will suffice because Nature has done nothing but showered her blessings upon man, so why should we think nature needs to be cleaned up—no, it is man that must be cleaned or eliminated from the planet.

 

Mother Nature is angry and no amount of pacification will work because you are the problem, not Mother Nature. Again, you have no intention to clean up yourself, but to persist in your wickedness, spreading it throughout the earth. You have now turned the poor children of Iraq into prostitutes by killing their mothers and fathers, just as you have done in the ghettoes of America, wherein babies eleven, twelve and thirteen are whoring because many of them are abused, abandoned and homeless.
In Iraq, the young girls are discarding the Muslim dress for jeans with sparkles so they can get money for food, just as the ghetto girls are doing, whoring for food and to pay their cell phone bill and buy hair weave.

 No, Mother Nature does not need correction; she knows how to heal herself without your assistance, for she has been around for billions of years while you have just arrived from the caves of Europe.
 

You need to forget about Mother Nature because she is coming after you and all those who behave like you, all who want to be robbers, pimps, thugs, gangstas and killers. See if you can fight Mother Nature when her earthquakes hit, hurricanes and tsunamis on the way.

You must bow down and submit to Mother Nature, asking her forgiveness for destroying her people, robbing them and keeping them deaf, dumb, and blind. Otherwise, you and your cosmetic attempt to appease her will be to no avail. In the end, you shall be wiped from the face of the earth. Mother Nature has revealed this truth to me. I speak in the name of fish, cows, birds, bees, ants, rivers, creeks, oceans, hills, mountains, sun, moon and stars. I speak in the name of corn, wheat, rice and all the crops Mother Nature has provided man for his pleasure.

 I speak in the name of the poor who have been robbed of their labor and natural resources so devils can live in heaven while the poor suffer in hell. No, you need not bother cleaning up anything but yourself, for it is highly doubtful you have the heart to do that, let alone tackle Mother Nature. Mother is well able to heal herself. Let’s see if you can heal your wickedness and injustice to her people.
--Marvin X
 
from The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley 2012. Order direct from the publisher Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702, $19.95, add $5.00 for handling and priority mailing. 
Marvin X is now available for readings and speaking engagements. Contact him at 510-200-4164.

Khalid Muhammad Speech That Got Him Relieved From His Nation Of Islam P...

Marvin X, on behalf of himself and Dr. Huey P. Newton, forever thanks and praises ancestor Dr. Khalid Muhammad for coming to Oakland CA searching for Marvin and Huey to save us from Crack.
"I was so cracked out when the Muslims told me Khalid was looking for me, I didn't know who they were talking about." Khalid said he read my writings while in college and especially loved my early work such as Fly to Allah, Son of Man, Black Man Listen and Woman--Man's Best Friend. As-Salaam-Alaikum, Dr. Khalid Muhammad!--Marvin X/El Muhajir

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X's Fictional Interview With President Obama

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X's Fictional Interview With President Obama

As per Afghanistan, we have promised the Taliban if they lay down their arms, we will give them schooling, housing and employment. We wish we could offer the same to our boys and girls in the hoods of America who are terrorizing their communities with drugs and guns, but our budget crisis will not allow education, housing and jobs for the boys and girls in the hood, although we can do this for the Taliban. As you know we did this in Iraq and this was the real cause of the decrease in violence, not the socalled surge of Baghdad under General Betrayus.

From the Archives: Plato Negro on Oakland's Need for Radical Spirituality

Plato Negro on Oakland's Need for Radical Spirituality
We know the spirit world is beyond color, therefore we must pray for all those slaughtered on the streets of Oakland, whether police or citizens. It is indeed sad when officers of the peace are unable to secure the peace of a community, but often become brute beasts in blue uniforms. And in return the citizens must become beasts in self defense, especially when they are already under stress from lacking the necessities of life: jobs, food, clothing and shelter, a stable family environment wherein they can evolve from animal to spiritual consciousness.

When violence becomes the order of the day, when the community is mortally afraid of those employed to protect them, when the citizens resort to violence in interpersonal relations, then that society is not of Divine, but is existing on the animal plane, the lowest level of existence, and yet we pretend to be civilized. We act like violent savages at the drop of a hat, the glance of an eye; we are ready to kill, slaughter each other often without the slightest cause, rhyme or reason.

In my 1968 interview with James Baldwin, he said, "It's a wonder we haven't all gone stark raving mad." Jimmy, I submit 40 years after your statement, we indeed have now gone stark raving mad. The streets of Oakland are no place to be somebody; they are on par with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico, where violence rules the day and every man must be conscious of his surroundings and behavior at any time.

West Oakland Elders at Bobby Hutton Park

The politicians and police are not the only ones to blame, but the entire community. We have churches on every corner yet there is something lacking in their spiritual message, something is lost in translation from pulpit to congregation to street. How can such massive violence exist in a Christian society or Muslim society for that matter? Why is there so little spiritual transformation evident in the people? The prosperity consciousness in religiosity theology these days only leads to conspicuous consumption that has led us to the present precipice.

Shall we continue in our madness until we slip over the cliff, until we are consumed by our own vomit? Someone, anyone, step forward and show us the light, the path, the way, for we have become a headless monster, a car without a driver; clearly the politicians cannot solve this conundrum of our lives, the educators are lost in perpetuating the world of make believe called white supremacy. Our economic leaders are lost in their shoestrings, trying to revive a decadent and dying free market capitalist system based on greed, cheap labor and cheap resources.

They are determined to ignore their own people in a global conspiracy of pyramid and Ponzi schemes which is the essence of international finance. All brother Mixon (who killed four police) wanted was a job. And the tragedy is that there are desperate men and women like him throughout the streets of Oakland, men and women who will find no job and become mad enough to follow his act of desperation and despair.

The police had a job watching him. His parole officer had a job watching him. His prison officials had a job securing him. Was he some sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered for all except himself? No wonder his desperation and despair, no wonder his feelings of nothingness and dread. No wonder his spirituality was crushed to the earth, making him a beast of prey, willing to do the ultimate to escape the jails and prison, the American gulag, the neo slavery plantations that exist throughout this nation, wherein the commodity is the souls and bodies of men and women.

Up from Slavery, Up from Ignut, up from the animal plane to the Divine. Throw off the shackles of mental slavery that permits us to claim the gun as our savior, the panacea for all that ills our community, when in reality it is only putting on the armor of God that will elevate us out of the dungeon of wickedness and despair.

The churches must teach a new way, the schools must teach a new way, discarding that primitive, out of date white supremacy curriculum that over fifty per cent of our children are intelligent enough to reject outright for its abject meaningless absurdity.

The churches are empty, especially of young men because the message does not touch their spiritual consciousness. They are too smart to be pimped by pimps in the pulpit. The brothers at the barber shop asked me, "OG, what's the difference between the pimp and the preacher?" I replied, "The difference is that the preacher has more whores."

As Brother Fritz Pointer noted, we can and must police ourselves, the police must be from our community, not living in Dublin, Tracy and Livermore. These are foreigners who have no love for our community. They are here to enforce white supremacy, white privilege and white power. And nothing shall change but go from bad to worse until the fundamental order is radically restructured. Sun Ra taught me, "The Creator got things fixed, you can't go forward or backward until you do the right thing."

So do the right thing, Oakland, the eyes of the world are on you at this hour, as it has been in the past when you raised up with the Black Panther Party to check the power of brute beasts in blue uniforms.

This time around, know that we have a problem that is not physical but spiritual, for when we put on the armor of God no one can touch us. Didn't Hammer tell us, "You can't touch this"? Those of you who don't believe in spirituality continue down the physical path when we know the end of this path.

Look at America at this hour drowning from excessive belief in the physical and material things of life, while none of this path has brought joy, peace and happiness to this world. As I look around Houston, Texas at the mansions owned by black people, at the same time I see the numerous hospitals here to heal those sick from the trappings of materialism, the mental stress, the cancer and other diseases caused by excessive belief in the physical things of life, while we know our health is our wealth.

What good are these mansions if we act like nigguhs inside, if the women are in golden handcuffs, abused, neglected and depressed, on the verge of suicide? We consume, consume, consume, and yet there is never enough. Our closets are full of trinkets we never take out of the bag, with the tags on them because they were wanted but not needed.

And yet there is enough to go around but we dare share, we dare give away anything, but hoard for dear life as though there will be no tomorrow. When we do not reach out to men like Mixon, we see the result, it is no mystery the desperation of his heart, the poverty of his dreams for simple things, basic survival in a land of plenty. Continue to deny his generation and await the Calamity.

To avoid the Calamity we must embrace the Religion of the Heart or spirituality, beyond churches, temples, mosques; simply recognize our spiritual essence, beyond the physical and material. What is the use of violence when the end of all wars is political discussion or diplomacy. Whether national or personal violence in the home, at the end of the day we want to talk, have a discussion, admit our wrongs, make reparations. Then why all the violence when ultimately we must do as Isaiah taught, "Reason together."

March 24, 2009

Playwright August Wilson's Ten Plays

Enjoy this Unique Theatrical Celebration: August Wilson's Ten Plays by anzinga

 

For the first time ever, actors will perform readings of August Wilson's ten plays on African American life in the 20th century in a venue that streams the shows live. Join us to watch the webcasts from New York Public Radio’s performance venue, The Greene Space:

All live streams begin at 7:00 pm EST on http://www.thegreenespace.org/

For extra, matinee performances of two of the plays, see listing below:

Read more… 71 more words

The Lower Bottom Playaz in Oakland Ca are striving to be the first troupe to ever stage the entire cycle in order of the decades presented. Read more:https://www.wepay.com/donations/help-us-bring-august-wilson-s-fences-to-the-stage

Journal of Pan African Studies

CURRENT ISSUE

Volume 6 • Number 3 • 2013



Guest Editor: Msia Kibona Clark, assistant professor of Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles and 2013/2014 Fulbright Scholar at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.



On the Cover: Political activist and hip hop artist Thiat from the Senegalese hip hop group Keur Gui, the group that helped found the Y’an a Marre (Enough is Enough) movement that lead to protests calling for political reforms in Senegal in 2011(photo by Msia Kibona Clark).

● Representing Africa! Trends in Contemporary African Hip Hop
by guest editor Msia Kibona Clark
[ view PDF ]
 
● The Struggle for Hip Hop Authenticity and Against Commercialization in Tanzania
by Msia Kibona Clark
[ view PDF ]

● Urban Guerrilla Poetry: The Movement Y’ en a Marre and the Socio-Political Influences of Hip Hop in Senegal
by Marame Gueye
[ view PDF ]

● “Chant Down the System ‘till Babylon Falls”: The Political Dimensions of Underground Hip Hop and Urban Grooves in Zimbabwe
by Katja Kellerer
[ view PDF ]
 
● From Compton to Cape Town: Black(faceless)ness and the Appropriation of Gangsta Rap in Die Antwoord's “Fok Julle Naaiers”
by Lanisa Kitchiner
[ view PDF ]
 
●The Hip Hop Revolution in Kenya: Ukoo Flani Mau Mau, Youth Politics and Memory, 1990-2012
by Mickie Mwanzia Koster
[ view PDF ]
 
● Swag' and 'cred': Representing Hip-hop in the African City
by Caroline Mose
[ view PDF ]
 
● Hip Hop Music as a Youth Medium for Cultural Struggle in Zanzibar
by Shani Omari
[ view PDF ]
 
● Troubling the Trope of “Rapper as Modern Griot”
by Damon Sajnani
[ view PDF ]
 
● “The Blueprint: The Gift and The Curse” of American Hip Hop Culture for Nigeria’s Millennial Youth
by Stephanie Shonekan
[ view PDF ]
 

Afro-Mexican Activists Demand Justice in the case of Malcolm Latif Shabazz's murder in Mexico City

                    

Piden justicia en caso Malcolm Latif. Afromexicanos inician huelga de hambre.

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Ourstorian

  

Afro-Mexican activists are demanding justice in the case of the recent murder in Mexico City of Malcolm Latif Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, and have started a hunger strike as part of their protest. This effort is being led by the Committee in Defense of the Naturalized and Afromexicans (El Comite Ciudadano de Defensa de los Naturalizados y Afromexicanos CCDNAM).
Among their demands they are calling for release of a video that may depict events surrounding the death of Shabazz; the establishment of an independent commission to examine the case; and for all Mexicans to renounce racism and violence.
The President of CCDNAM, Dr. Wilner Metelus, made the following statement about the protest:

We are here to support our brother Malcolm Latif who died last month in Mexico. To us, it was a hate crime.
We are indebted to Malcolm X, one of the great leaders of the past century. So we cannot stay silent over the manner in which they killed our brother Malcolm Latif. His family lives in the U.S. and we are showing that we are with them, that they are not alone.
We’re here to help our brothers in other countries who are supporting this fight. And we are in solidarity with thousands of Mexican families who have lost loved ones. We know that in this country there is no justice. We as humans have to fight.

Scene from a CCDNAM protest march in June in Mexico City

CCDNAM protest in front of the offices of the District Attorney for the Federal District

The Mexico City nightclub where Malcolm Latif Shabazz was murdered.

The clip below explaining the objectives of the CCDNAM-led protests is in Spanish.

The official blog of the CCDNAM.
See also this article on the protests in the San Francisco Bay View newspaper.
Information on the arrests of two suspects in the case.
Hat Tip to Davey D for following this story.

Malcolm Latif Shabazz (October 8, 1984 – May 9, 2013)

Posted in Afro-Latinos | Tagged Afro Mexicans, Committee in Defense of the Naturalized and Afromexicans, Davey D's Hiphop Corner, El Comite Ciudadano de Defensa de los Naturalizados y Afromexicanos, Grandson of Malcolm X, Hunger Strike, Malcolm Latif Shabazz, Mexico City, Murder, San Francisco Bay View | Leave a reply

Dr. Nathan Hare on Marvin X, Back from the Dead; On Memory and Consciousness in the Butler

Dr. M, Dr. Julia Hare, Dr. Nathan Hare, Attorney Amira Jackmon

 

 

Good morning, Dr. M.

 

Welcome back.

Our recent astonishment soon caused us to question what had seemed a most credible report of your demise, until we were able to verify that news of your demise was somewhat premature, that like myself you still have promises to keep, and miles to go before you sleep.

 

Thanks for your paraphrase of my thoughts on memory here. As you know, in 1969, we came to a fork in the road and faced the challenge and the task of prolonged struggle on the right and the reclamation leading left to our lost antiquity. We took the road leading left, so that  for forty years  from 1969 to 2009, we pursued a lost African antiquity; so that action and combat with our oppression took second place to knowing about and reclaiming a past that had gone forever. The more a black intellectual knew about Africa, especially its bygone past, the heavier you were as a black revolutionary in the public mind. White Africanists were shunted to the side so that they need not apply, as we rehashed and reinterpreted their archeological findings and other “Africana” – the museum approach to black studies that took the stage in place of community  involvement.  We neglected our immediate or most recent past and recent generations. The youth, having little or no direction in the present, turned away from us and our ideas, rejected them and sought to reinvent the wheel, including our celebrated musical esthetics, style and dance, if not a primitive and predatory model of manhood itself. We were “hipped” or “hip,” so they became “hip hop.“

 

We forgot that there is a difference in the consequences for discourse of long-term and short-term memory, that it is short-term memory that most stymies the social adaptability of the demented mind. You can forget the first woman you kissed but not the one or the reason you are in bed with for the moment, or where you have laid your hat when her old man returns. You don’t have to know what love is but you have to know what turn or twist to take in the moment. By focusing on the faraway and the long ago, we extended our collective memory far into the past and antiquity, but on top of the loss and neglect of short-term historical memory, our memory became longer than our understanding.

 

Glad you’re back. Keep on trucking. As Mrs. DuBois used to like to say, we still got a long old row to hoe

 

Nathan

From the Archives: Marvin X reviews The Great Debaters

This is a coming of age film of the North American African Nation. It is about a people regaining their consciousness after decades of obscurity. This film puts them back properly in the time and space of history, for they present themselves as a civilized people, the children and the adults, thus making it a movie on the goodness of life and the power of consciousness to reveal the very best of a people, thus regaining their self respect before the world community. It shows the intelligence and leadership of American African youth-- of adult leadership and intelligence as well, including the radical activist tradition in North American African History.

Every North American African, every Pan African, can be proud that Oprah Winfrey and Denzil Washington produced this. Perhaps we have reached that moment in time when our people have no choice but to be their true selves, their best selves.

For the first time in a long time, we see the intellectual genius of a people during the turbulent 1930s. This should be a lesson to all North American Africans that we have a dignified liberation tradition to uphold, thus we cannot sink into the morass of today, but in the manner of this film, take a great leap forward into dignity, respect, and intelligent behavior.

As a people, we must be proud of the young performers in this drama. They have exhibited the very best in us as human beings, as African people. The children teach us and themselves in this movie. They teach us the worst in human consciousness with their remarks on a lynching.

They repeatedly show us the power of using the black mind for intellectual dexterity rather than barbarity and expressions of animal consciousness.

This film is in the genre of Akila and the Bee, except that it goes deeper socially, intellectually, historically and spiritually. While it reveals the utter racism and white supremacy of this nation, it also depicts the resistance and transcendence to this unique American evil, especially in the present era.

The music is excellent, the visuals as well, including the acting and dance, giving us a sense of the ritual life of our people during the 1930s. The young character Henry who became a debater after a riotous life is exemplary and a clear example to other wayward youth struggling to survive in the hoods of America . You can come up if you get up! Yes, it takes energy: the same energy it takes to stay down it takes to get up!

Denzil Washington must be given kudos for his role as Melvin Tolson, the great poet of our people. Denzil proves his acting ability in presenting Tolson as the intellectual/activist, a tradition often represented by the artists/activists of the 1960s. But in the character of poet Tolson, we see the roots of the Black Arts Movement artist/activism that would emerge in the 60s with Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure,Larry Neal, Marvin X, Haki Madhubuti, Ed Bullins, June Jordan and others. But this tradition had its origins in the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s, and the poets, writers, and artists of the 30s, 40s and 50s, from Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Sterling Brown, Gwen Brooks, Ralph Ellison and others.

Forest Whitaker as the senior James Farmer maintained a certain dignity early on that his character revealed later in The Deacons, his character kept its self respect when confronted by white racists after he accidentally ran over their hog. This scene is a survival lesson for young black men. I tell young black men on the street and in the schools and colleges that they must pass the tone test when confronted by police: depending on their tone of voice, they can be killed, arrested or released.

But imagine, so-called Negroes having an intellectual debate, even a team of debaters with a coach who apprises them on the Willie Lynch syndrome, who tells them straight out white supremacy has them insane, thus confirming the sister who says it is not white supremacy but white lunacy, thus we are victims of an insanity far beyond the economic implications. I love James Baldwin's quote, It is a wonder we haven't all gone stark raving mad dealing with white supremacy for four hundred years. The Debaters is a hopeful sign that we can and shall overcome, that we can and shall regain our collective sanity.

Marvin X reviews The Butler

We would like to say The Butler jarred our collective memory, but Dr. Nathan Hare says we have no collective memory, thus we cannot suffer amnesia for amnesia presumes we lost something or forgot something, but Hare says we cannot lose something we never had! Thus the present generation simply has no knowledge of events prior to hip hop, no knowledge of segregation, no knowledge of the Civil Rights struggle, of the Black Panthers, indeed, the American educational system tried to wipe out all knowledge of the past, even when we see The Butler in the White House, we are never informed Africans built the White House, designed the White House! So we get half truths paraded as truth and youth then assume we were the perennial butlers and maids and nothing more, except suddenly, like Jack out of the box, we jumped into the White House and became president of the United States.

In a rapid pace narrative we see the Butler gives us hints of American barbarity and forced submission to the American slave system. The rape is there, the humiliation, the passivity in the making of a house nigger, and what greater creation of a house nigger can there be except the nigger in the White House; yet we see the extension of the house nigger, the butler, in the performance of the first Black president, although this movie stopped at his election wherein we were indeed elated that the butler had transformed his persona--yet we have seen again the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Again, what a wonderful narrative of the house nigger, a lesson for all of us to consider to what extent we shall play the role and dance the schizophrenic Tango of masks, of illusion and reality. In the Butler we see how the toxic environment of racism destroys men, women and children. The father is a perfect picture of servility and passivity. Of course this is appointed role of every person caught in the American slave system. Some perform the role dutifully, some resist as the son, others medicate as did the mother and son who died in Vietnam. Ironically, the young Black woman acknowledged the necessity of violence in her resistance. We watched The Butler with a married couple, of which the wife had said after Zimmerman was found not guilty of killing Trayvon Martin, she was ready to kill the first white person she saw!

In short, the Butler was great history and social-psychology. It challenges North American Africans to decide what role they shall play in the liberation of themselves, whether we shall submit or resist.
We think the director, Lee Daniels, did a great job with his method of contrasting scenes to illuminate our understanding of events, from scenes of submission at the White House to those of resistance in the Civil Rights movement. The make up of  Forest Whitaker as The Butler transformed his persona into that classic tragic masks revealing the utter humiliation of his character and the devastation of his personality as a human being. Without words, his persona revealed his pain.

Oprah Winfrey as the mother should be applauded for revealing how we often medicate ourselves with alcohol and other drugs to escape the psychosocial trauma of life in a toxic environment.

Terrence Howard portrayed an excellent neighbor caught up in the mythology of pussy and dick.

Of course David Oyelowo as the radical son captured my heart. When we suggest radicals work on their families, try to liberate their families, the radical son's character is what we mean--yes, do the community work but don't neglect your family because as we saw in this drama, it's all about the family, either its destruction or construction, i.e., liberation. We saw the son ultimately won his father to the cause of Black liberation and Pan African liberation. Once families are united, the revolution is won!
--Marvin X, Editor, Black Bird Press News & Review